


Chains Both Iron and Silk

by robberreynard



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Abuse, Arranged Marriage, Comfort, M/M, Muteness, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:42:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3722467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robberreynard/pseuds/robberreynard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halward finally has his way- Dorian is married to a woman that hates him as much as he hates her and the Pavus lineage continues, as prestigious as ever. But he's not blind to Dorian's wants. In an attempt to make his son happy, he has procured his son a wild Dalish slave with mutilated vocal chords to curb his impulses. </p><p>Dorian is appalled, but to send him away is to condemn him to death or worse at the hands of slavers. His only choice is to keep the tattooed elf, but how long can you keep an animal caged?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chains Both Iron and Silk

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a kinkmeme prompt I can no longer find as it was completely crazy there for a few weeks after Inquisition was released and I stupidly didn't save the link.  
> I also suck at summaries.

They're perfect for each other. 

That's what they'd all say. Nevermind that they hated each other, that he hated everything about her and she felt the same in return, they were perfect for each other. Was that mutual hatred the thing that made people think they belonged together?   
They all sat around the table, friends, family, people Dorian had not seen since he was a child and people he wished to never see again, all congratulating him and his father on the perfect match. They'd done it. Just as they said they would, they had torn him down, reshaped him in the eyes of the public, and put him on his pedestal where he belonged, like all their treasured belongings. Not their son, no, he was a belonging to be admired and occasionally dusted. He drank deeply from his goblet while his wife, who he could hardly blame this on as she was just as miserable, droned on about how oh so romantic it had all been. She wasn't a terrible woman. If they had met under different circumstances, he would have no reason to hate her as he did. But Maker, did he hate the woman sitting next to him. 

Though perhaps not as much as he hated the man on the other end of the table. They'd been trading looks all night, from anger to pleading to disappointment and everything between and beyond. This was his fault.   
He couldn't accept that the grand house Pavus could be anything but perfect, that it not continue it's unending stream of Pavus spawn from bitter women who hated their husbands. And here was one more generation of children born from two people that could barely stand to touch each other.   
Dorian raised a glass to him. 

_Cheers, father. May you choke on your legacy._

He swallowed a healthy gulp of wine, then another, and another, and when his glass was empty he called over a servant to fill it again. The cycle repeated. The guests seemed to be enjoying themselves at least, even if Dorian was slowly but surely pickling himself, giving their congratulations to the two young love birds. They drank as well. Funny how much of a difference there was between drinking to celebrate and drinking to splinter from your own mind. Dorian sank a little into his seat, partly because he just didn't feel like sitting up straight any longer and partly because sitting up was becoming an issue the longer he drank.

“Dorian?” Mera, his unlucky bride, said with a glance in his direction. Much like his mother, her disapproval made itself known with only a look, “Are you alright?”

“No,” Dorian replied bluntly. A burst of laughter erupted at the other end of the table, he couldn't be sure the cause but the tightly knit group of Magisters were cracking themselves up. He couldn't help noting those men were friends of Halward, and very few of Dorian's own were in attendance. He sank a little deeper in his seat. “Are you?”

“No.”

At least she was honest. Dorian raised his glass in offering, and Mera clinked her own against it in a lackluster toast, the glass chiming like a softly tinkling death knell. The two tossed back their drinks in unison. 

The night wore on after that, with more toasts, people he knew only through his father, and he sank deeper and deeper into both his cups and his seat as it wore on until he was drowning in both. By some miracle he managed to push himself up and excuse himself from the table. The entire room felt stagnant. The laughter of the Magister's had given him a headache as well, so he excused himself wordlessly and decided to bypass the servants completely when it came to keeping his cups full. The cooks gave him odd looks when he entered the kitchens and found the nearest cask of alcohol, they were hardly the most pressing issue at the moment. He was still sober enough to operate the spigot on a barrel of wine, which was just an indication that he wasn't trying hard enough. This was his main concern for the time being. Where the servants had been giving him halves the entire night, Dorian let the wine run until a few bubbles floated about the rim of his glass. Much better.   
He leaned against a table and drank. 

“Dorian.”

“Halward,” Dorian said without looking up from his glass, then said nothing else until his father spoke again.

“I've brought you a wedding present.”

“Oh goodie, is it a noose? I could really use one right about now.” Dorian downed another half glass of wine. They sadly had nothing stronger on hand. Wine washed away the misery as good as anything, he supposed.

“Dorian, I know this is not the precise path you wanted to follow, but just trust me when I say this was for the best,” his father sighed and took him by the arm. The older magister led him away from the cask of wine Dorian had spent more time with than his new bride, down a set of steps to the very pits of the mansion, below even the servants and staff. Nothing was down here, except for the occasional rat of a dizzingly large size and spiderwebs big enough to cradle small babies. 

“Despite what you may think of me, I only want what's best for you.”

Dorian snorted derisively at that. What a funny man he was.

“But,” he continued with a sharp glare at his son, “I understand that this...agreement might not make you happy. So I thought that perhaps this could be my way of apology.”

They reached the end of the long, dark corridor. The whole place smelled of wet moss and age. His father came to a door at the end of the hall and finally released him.

“Father, as much as I love being led around decrepit old hallways, there is nothing you can do to apologize for this,” Dorian said harshly, “I am going to hate you. You should just come to terms with that.”

On that note, he swallowed the last drop of wine in his goblet, turning to leave with his determination to hate. The door creaked open on rusted hinges behind him.

“At least look at him.”

Dorian stopped. Him? As much as he dreaded to look, he turned back stiffly, goblet clutched tightly in his hand. In the center of the room- a dungeon in all honesty- sat an elf. 

Lit only by a scarce few candles, the slender form looked darker than even the almond shade of his skin, struggling against binds. The muscles in his back rolled with the effort as he tried and failed to undo the shackles clapped on his wrists. He turned, and Dorian saw a handsome face twisted in anger. Upon the elf's high cheeks and brow were an intricate network of tattoos, lines and circles and designs that blended into one another and rose from each other in a beautiful array of white shapes inked into his skin. They were framed by a disheveled mess of black hair, falling in his eyes when he jerked towards Dorian and his father. A pair of gray eyes glared at him like daggers in the darkness.

“What is this,” Dorian asked, anger beginning to bubble hot in his throat, “Is he meant as...some sort of pet to fuck whenever I'm feeling bored of my listless marriage?”

“If you wish. Or he could simply be a house elf. He may take some training either way, they said he was a spirited one.” 

The elf snarled wordlessly and opened his mouth to speak, only to wince and clutch his throat the moment a sound came. Dorian instinctively moved towards him. To do what, to comfort him? Like he had any right to. 

“What have you done to this poor man,” he demanded.

“Nothing,” his father said simply in return, “The slavers I bought him from were a prickly lot. They didn't take kindly to the way he spoke to them.”

There, across his neck just under his chin, lay a fierce red gash standing out in stark relief against his dark skin. Dorian's brows furrowed.

“So they mutilated him.” Hardly an uncommon reaction amongst slavers. He just always thought his family better than those that mistreated the people in their service. Why would they encourage this, give money to men that slit the throats of their slaves without even the decency to let them die? 

“I am not accepting him,” Dorian growled, turning on his father, “This, whatever this is, I will not keep a pet elf for the sole purposes of molesting him!”

“Then as I said, keep him merely as a servant.” Halward moved to his side, solemn and terribly serious. “If I take him back to those slavers, I am condemning him to a life far worse than anything either of us would do to him.”

“Oh, fantastic, now you're guilt tripping me into becoming a rapist. Wonderful, father, the things you think of me.” But there was truth to that, wasn't there. The elf must have heard it too. His hands held tighter to his throat, a scowl wrinkling his tattoos. There was fear in those stormy eyes at the mention of the slavers, buried under the anger.

“I'm not asking you to do anything with him, Dorian,” he sighed in exasperation, “But you cannot ask me to return him to those savage men. If you truly cared about his fate, his welfare, then the best thing to do is to take him.” 

Silence hung heavy between them. Even the elf had stopped his fruitless struggling, adding to weight of the stillness. Was it pride that stopped Dorian from accepting? Was he so offended by the intended purpose of this slave, that he would turn him away, force him to return to cutthroats, just so he could prove his father wrong? How childish could he be? Despite his better judgment, his eyes traversed the lithe yet muscular form bound before him. In only the scantest smallclothes, he could see every line of the tattoos mapping his body, almost every inch of skin adorned by white ink that practically glowed in the candlelight. He'd only heard of the Dalish practice, having never really been close enough to a Dalish elf to see for himself. He frowned hard, reaching down to take the elf's hand. The chains clinked softly with the movement, and the smaller man recoiled. 

“Give me the key,” he finally said, “What do I call him...”

A cold piece of metal fell into his palm.

“They told me he came from the Dalish clan Lavellan in the wilds of Fereldan. But he answers to Asriel.”


End file.
